


The Prince and the Mermaid

by MrProphet



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 12:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10697229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Prince and the Mermaid

The worst storm in living memory struck that coast on the night of a spring tide, driving the water up the shore and almost to the very walls of the palace itself. The town below the palace was quite flooded and all of the houses drowned, so that the people of the town made their way to the palace to ask for the aid of the King and Queen, which they were most willing to give. The Queen in particular was tireless in her efforts to bring succour to those whose homes had been lost.

“For the sea has taken from them, when it has only even given to me,” she explained to her husband. “For did the sea not bring me even my husband?”

The King sent his men to do all that they could, and he and the Queen went down with them, to search through the wreckage and help the people recover all that they could, while the young Prince went with the sailors and the fishermen who were his boon companions to comb the rocks for the nets and sails and wooden planks that were all the remained of the ships and the boats in the harbour.

As he combed the rocks, picking up spars and planks and strips of sailcloth, the Prince heard a voice singing a low, sad song. The voice was more beautiful than anything he had ever heard in his life, but even as he searched for the singer it faded into nothingness.

At last, however, he saw a girl lying on the rocks. Her head was cut and she lay still, with her eyes closed, but her beauty was so great that it captivated him at once. He ran to her side and with delight discovered that she was still breathing, yet his joy turned to shock when he saw that the girl had, instead of legs, a long, powerful tail, like that of a great fish, or of a porpoise.

“This maiden must be a daughter of the King of the Sea,” he said to himself, for he had heard tales of such as she from his father’s sailors, “washed ashore in the storm. I should take her to the palace, where she may be healed.” But as he stooped to lift her, he found that her breathing was heavy and laboured. “She is not a creature of the air,” he realised. “If she is to find healing then it must be in the sea.”

And so the Prince lifted the Sea Maid in his arms and bore her down to the water’s edge. The tide was coming in and he laid her in a rock pool to wait for the sea to buoy her up and carry her away. He watched as she was carried out on the tide and he felt his heart ache for the loss of her.

Now, the Prince had long been known and loved for his high heart and his good humour, but now the people and his kin saw him grow melancholy and distant. Where once he had laughed and played with the fisherfolk and the tavern folk along the waterside, now he was always to be found walking along the shore and gazing out to sea like one who was lost, or who had lost something of great importance.

One day, the King went out to find the Prince. “I know what ail you, my son,” he said. “I felt the same pains, knew the same longing, when I searched so long and so fruitlessly for your mother. Tell me, my son, of the girl who has captured you heart.”

And so the Prince told his father of the beautiful Sea Maid whom he had rescued and who had stolen his heart.

“Ah, my son!” the King cried in despair. “Alas for you, for love between the air and the sea can only lead to tragedy.”

And so it seemed that it must be, for day after day the Prince stared out to sea, watching for the Sea Maid, but she never came. At last, the Queen came out to him and begged him to come home and abandon his unreachable maiden, and to dance and to smile once more.

“I can not, mother, for I can not abandon my love, any more than my father could have abandoned his.”

At this, his mother hung her head. “You shame me, my son,” she said. “If you can not be shaken from your love then it must be true love indeed and I will do what I can to help you win your beloved’s heart. Come back to the palace tonight and in the morning I shall send you forth to visit the temple where I studied as a girl. There you must speak with the High Priestess, whose wisdom is unparalleled. She shall help you if any can.”

And so the Prince came back to the palace and his parents threw a great feast in honour of his departure. Yet before they would let him go they would test his resolve, and so they filled the court with every fair maiden in the land and in the name of courtesy the Prince must needs take the hand of each for a dance. But although each maid held the Prince close and batted her eyes in his direction, he had eyes for none of them and held none for longer than good form demanded.

Thus, when the morning came, the King bowed his head before the inevitable and sent his son out to the temple. Yet his mother still held out hope that the Prince’s heart might be tempted back to the land. Therefore, when he arrived at the temple he found himself waited upon for three days by the fairest and wisest of the acolytes who studied there.

Only when his love and his fortitude proved themselves the equal of all that the acolytes could offer was the Prince granted an audience with the High Priestess, herself a woman of no inconsiderable beauty, who greeted him in her dark and incense-wreathed chambers.

“So, my Prince,” she said softly, “you come in search of wisdom?”

“No, High Priestess,” the Prince replied. “I know that wisdom would bid me to abandon the memory of a Sea Maid who never so much as saw my face and wed one of the many beauties my mother has sent to woo me. I seek only your aid, for wisdom is of no use to me.”

“Very well,” the High Priestess agreed. “If neither wisdom nor beauty can dissuade you, your mother has asked that I give you my assistance in pursuing your love. Take this draught to the shore where you met your Sea Maid, at high tide. Drain it at one draught and leap into the water without hesitation and you will be transformed into a merman, free to seek out your Sea Maid.

“But be warned, my Prince. When you drain this draught you will feel it burn through your body, and your lungs will ache like an open wound as you swim through the deeps. Moreover, your voice is a voice of the air and none shall hear it beneath the waves; you must plight your troth to this girl without speech.”

“When I meet this girl, she shall see the love in my eyes. I shall need no words.”

“Thus speaks youth,” the High Priestess replied. “But should your mission end in failure, you must find a way to return to the shore. Do that and you shall be returned to your human form.”

“I shall not need to do so,” the Prince assured her.

And so the Prince went back to his home and walked down to the shore, and he drained the High Priestess’s draught and threw himself into the sea. Sure enough, it felt as though his body were on fire, and then when he quenched that pain in the waters it was as though his lungs were an open wound. Yet the thought of his Sea Maid drew him on and he dived deep into the ocean, driving himself down with powerful strokes of the great tail which now grew from his waist in place of legs.

Long, long he dived, until the water grew dark and his muscles ached almost as much as his lungs, but at last he saw lights beneath him. He swam down and down until he reached the shining palace of the King of the Sea.

And there, in the garden of the palace, he saw his Sea Maid, dancing with four other lovely maids who could only be her sister. He swam down among them and held out his hands to her, but the sisters scattered in fear.

“Wait!” he wanted to call out. “I was the one who saved you! I have come to find you!” but he had no voice. The Sea Maids fled from him and soon he found himself seized by their guards.

The Prince was dragged away to the cells and from there to the King’s throne room, where the King of the Sea condemned the boy to death for assaulting his daughters. Yet the King of the Sea was a kind and fair man, and he saw goodness in the Prince’s face.

“I can little believe that you came here as a ravager of innocents,” the King of the Sea said. “Speak now, stranger, and tell me your cause, and perhaps there will be no need for death this day.”

And the Prince strove to say: “I came because I love your daughter,” but no words would, or could, come forth, and regretfully the King ordered that he be taken back to the cells to await his execution.

That night, the Sea Maid came to the Prince’s cell and faced him through the bars.

“Do you know me?” she asked, and he nodded.

“Why did you come?” The Prince shrugged helplessly.

She looked into his eyes. “Do you love me?” she asked.

The Prince could make no replay, but his eyes spoke volumes.

The Sea Maid opened the cell. “Then flee,” she said. “Fly to the shore.”

The Prince held out his hand to her, but she shook her head. He swam resolutely to the corner of his cell and sat.

“Very well,” the Sea Maid agreed.

She took his hand and led him from the cell. Together they fled through the halls and away, up through the dark water to the bright water and into the air. He scrambled out onto the rocks and lay there, gasping for breath, feeling his tail split into separate legs.

He turned and faced the Sea Maid. “I love you!” he declared. “I want you to be my wife, on land or on sea, I do not care!”

“And neither do I,” the Sea Maid assured him. “I came here to trap you, my Prince, to lure you down into the sea and to your death, as your father lured my sister to hers.”

The Prince was horrified. “My father?”

“She saved his life,” the Sea Maid explained, “and when she came to the land to seek him out he spurned her. She walked on knives every step she took; that pain you knew in the ocean, she felt it every day for months. She danced for him, and he married a mortal chit who found him on the beach where she left him. And then, when we made such sacrifices to save her, she chose to die for him.

“We swore, all of her sisters, that one day we would make her prince pay for what he had done. And then you came, and I saw the way. To find you, to lure you down and to have my father kill you, leaving your father bereft.”

“But you didn’t do it,” the Prince said.

“No,” she replied, “because I am better than your father. I will not allow one who loves me to suffer because of it. Seek out the High Priestess,” she told him. “She will help you to forget. And stay away from the shore; my sisters are not so forgiving as I.” And with that, she turned on her tail and disappeared into the waters.

The Prince watched the water where she had vanished for a long time, and then he leaped after her, and was never seen again.


End file.
